War Head Civil War

+ WAR HEAD CIVIL WAR VI 28.9.2024 +

Welcome to the War Head Civil War VI Primer! This is to provide our participants with guidelines to prepare with, and for others to learn about the compressed "Patrols" format we've enjoyed in our casual in-house tournaments. Past Civil War articles and coverage posts can be found here. This year's event will be arranged on the last weekend of September.

What is War Head Civil War?

The Civil War is War Head crew's dear gaming event tradition. As an annual occurence, Civil War has been fought five times, beginning as a 40K gaming day and later transferring to the scenes of the Horus Heresy. The focus of the event has always been in the camaraderie and the visual aspects of the hobby in miniatures and terrain, with the friendly games in a secondary role. One's wargaming hobby might be entirely different depending on who they surround themselves with - in a like-minded company where everyone feeds off each others' inspiration and shares the same gaming values, it's a creative and social joy like no other. Civil War has been created to encapsulate this principle.

The Civil War is as much about the journey as it is of the destination, as the preparations begin early on before the actual gathering. The tradition calls for secret mustering of new assets, unexpected reinforcements or completely new surprise armies, which are presented to other players in the morning of the gaming day. We look forward to this moment the entire year, as it is always a spectacular culmination of artistic efforts and unique vision shaped to miniature form. There's nothing like astonishing your friends with something you've put a lot of thought and effort into, and then entering the battlefields deploying the force for a first time.

Civil War Army Composition

The Civil War Patrol armies are built from the official Horus Heresy faction tomes with PDF releases such as the Legacies of the Age of Darkness allowed. The army composition is not bound by the usual Force Organisation Chart and may be built freely adhering to following restrictions (for example, no mandatory HQ choices).

The event is of casual nature. The emphasis should be on thematic list building, aiming to create as unique, interesting or narratively inspired forces as possible. Civil War army building values are out-of-the-box thinking, the rule of cool and anti-competitive choices, resulting in flavourful "grassroots skirmish" lists following the official background story.

Civil War Patrol Detachment

• 500 points
• Minimum of 1 compulsory Troops choice
• No model may have more than 2 Wounds
• Non-Astartes factions may include a single unit with 3 Wounds
• Maximum of one model with a 2+ Armour Save
• Any vehicle's three combined armour face values may not exceed 33
• No Rites of War
• No Warlords 

Other Features and Errata

• Battlefields sized 48 x 60" 
• Total of four game turns in each game
• No generic Night Fighting 
• Zone Mortalis Core Reactions
  
• Each player has one Core reaction per turn
• No unit may react more than once per turn despite of wargear or special rules
• All non-vehicle units count as Scoring units, with Line as "superscoring" that cannot be denied except by other Line units
• If a unit is pinned on their own turn, for example as a part of an enemy Reaction, they remain pinned until the end of the following enemy turn. The unit is then free to act normally to start their next turn.
• A model with a 2+ save may only be allocated wounds up to their Initiative value, the rest have to be allocated to other models within their unit. For example when a Tactical Squad suffers 7 wounds, four of these may be allocated to the Sergeant with Artificer Armour (as they are initiative 4) with the remaining three wounds allocated to the rest of the squad

Event Scenarios and Mission Pack

The Civil War is designed for eight participants, each fighting three battles during the event day. The pairings are randomized for each round, and may result in new alliances formed or former ones broken, as is the 30K spirit! The first game is a usual clash between two players, the second one a 2 versus 2 "Doubles" game with the third battle being a Free-for-all "Carnage" for four simultaneously competing generals.

Start of Game Preparations

1. Agree on the use and effects of terrain
2. Roll to see who places the first objective marker
3. Roll to see who chooses the deployment zones
4. Deployment starting with who chose the zones
5. Pregame movement (Infiltration, Scout)
6. Whoever deployed first starts the game, unless...
7. Seize the Initiative

Civil War Battle I

Composition: One vs One
Deployment: Dawn of War
Game Length: Four Turns
Objectives: Two markers on no man's land and two markers on deployment zones, at least 9" from edges and 12" from other objectives.

• Score 1 VP at the end of your turn for each no man's land marker held.
• Score 2 VP at the end of your turn if you hold the marker in the enemy deployment zone.
• Score 1 VP if you have destroyed a character model at the end of the game.
• Score 4 VP if you destroy the entire enemy patrol.

Civil War Battle II

Composition: Two vs Two
Deployment: Dawn of War
Game Length: Four Turns
Objectives: Six markers at least 9" from edges and 12" from other objectives

• Score 1 VP if you hold two objective markers at the start of your turn. The same combination of two markers may not be scored twice by the same team. 
• Score 2 VP for each Line unit within the enemy deployment zone at the end of the game.
• Score 1 VP for any non-vehicle unit within the enemy deployment zone at the end of the game. 
• Score 4 VP if you destroy the entire enemy patrol.

Civil War Battle III

Composition: Four players free-for-all
Deployment: Corners, deployment zones measured 12x18". Players alternate deploying their units one at a time until all forces are deployed.
Game Length: Four Turns
Objectives: One marker at the centre of the battlefield and one marker at the centre of each battlefield quarter

• Objective Markers begin the game with 0 VP tokens except the central objective, which starts with 1 VP Token.
• At the end of every game turn, 1 VP Token is placed on any objectives that were not scored during the turn. 
• Players score 1 VP for each VP Token on any objectives they hold at the end of the game turn. They may also decide not to score any points, waiting for VP Tokens to accumulate.
  
• A unit engaged in close combat may not score points for an objective, even if they are Line.
• Whenever you have caused a wound or a hull point damage against all three opposing players, you score 1 VP. The calculation is then started again from 0 for each opponent. 

Special Rules for the Multiplayer Game

• Turn Structure: Each player chooses a different dice colour and puts in the Draw Bag as many coloured dice as they have separate units in their army. Whenever a unit of theirs is destroyed, one dice is removed from the pool at the end of the turn. At the beginning of all turns count the current number of surviving separate units and update the dice number put into the Draw Bag.
• Turn Structure: During the game, instead of the usual turn structure, dice are drawn from the bag at random one at a time. The colour indicates which player gets to activate one of their units next. When activating a unit, the unit moves, shoots and charges, after which a new dice is drawn to determine the next active player. The same unit may not be activated again during the same game turn.
• Charged before activating: If a unit has not yet been activated and is chosen as a target for a charge, it may perform a Hold the Line or Overwatch Core reaction at -1 to hit that does not count towards the restriction of maximum one reaction per turn. This spends the unit's activation and a dice of theirs is removed from the Draw Bag.
• Assault: Combat phase is fought simultaneously after all eligible units have been activated and have performed their movement, shooting and charging actions. The order in which several simultaneously happening combats are resolved is randomized.
• Assault Results: To determine multiple player assault results, count the number of wounds inflicted and reduce the wounds received. The player with the highest score is the combat winner, and players with the lowest score are the combat losers. All other players count as shaken. Combat loser takes a morale check with negative modifiers equal to the difference between caused and suffered wounds. The shaken unit tests against its regular leadership. Any unit may only perform sweeping advance against one fleeing unit and may not perform sweeping advance if still locked in combat. 
• Morale: Units don't have to check for Morale for suffering 25% shooting casualties.
• Morale: Pinning lasts until the end of the affected unit's next activation.
• Morale: Units fall back towards their friendly deployment zone corner.
• Morale: Regroup test is made at the start of the unit's activation.
• Characters: Dice are only put in the Draw Bag for Independent Characters if they have not joined a unit. If a character wishes to leave a unit during the game, it has to be a unit that has not activated yet that round. In this case a single additional dice of said player's colour is put into the Draw Bag after the character's activation. If an Independent character joins a unit during the game the unit may not be activated later during the same turn.
• Victory Points: points from this scenario count straight towards the final tournament point tally of each player (not calculated according to the VP difference as usual).

Victory Points Difference and Tournament Points

0 = 10-10
1 = 11-19
2 = 12-8
3 = 13-7
4 = 14-6
5 = 15-5
6 = 16-4
7 = 17-3

8 = 18-2
9 = 19-1
10 = 20-0